The present invention relates to an associative memory device, and more particularly to an associative memory device capable of being used as a usual memory device and executing a search processing for text data at high speed.
In a conventional associative memory device, as described in a catalog of Am99C10 (AMD CORP.), storage keys as a comparison reference are previously set in the device, and upon entry of a search key as a comparison object, the associative operation results are outputted after a lapse of certain time. In addition to a device of the type that a priority encoder and the like are used to output predetermined code information, there is known a device of the type that code information set as desired is outputted as described in Japanese Patent Laid-open Publications JP-A-58-146089 and JP-A-59-220838. These associative devices have been used as dedicated devices for speeding up pattern matching processing and address translation processing.